Students play minor role in big time sports

In 1951, the first time the University of Connecticut’s basketball team played in Madison Square Garden, more than 3,000 students went to the game on a special train chartered to take them from nearby Willimantic to New York.Last Friday, when UConn played again in the legendary sports arena, there was also a special train, announced by none other than Gov. Dannel Malloy, but it went from not quite nearby New Haven and it was primarily for the convenience of fans who could pay for the $489 to $4,740 seats. Those who could pay $12,500 a ticket for club sideline seats probably flew in on gossamer wings. But the students were not forgotten — completely. A special lottery was held for them and 200 students won the right pay $150 to $200 to see their college team play in the Garden’s legendary nosebleed seats, convenient to the rafters. The mention of the train for 3,000 Storrs residents from Willimantic is a reminder that college basketball and football were once meant primarily for students to watch fellow students play other students. While all this transportation and ticketing news was being reported in the east, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago ruled that Northwestern University football players are employees of the university and therefore have the right to form a union and bargain collectively for pay and other benefits.Imagine that. Young men who spend 50 hours a week or more practicing and playing a sport in return for tuition and room and board, awarded for their athletic, not their academic skills, are employees of the university. Or, if you want to imagine that closer to home, students who perform before an audience willing to pay $450 or $4,750 or $12,500 to watch them play basketball for 40 minutes, plus time outs, should be paid for their work.This was a ruling by one NLRB official and it will be exhaustively appealed by the university and the college sports governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The NCAA is the inventor of the term, “student athletes” for the players who make up the minor leagues for professional basketball and football.u u uAs college basketball and football grew into a $16 billion industry, there has been growing sentiment for paying those who do most of the work. The NCAA amusingly insists that these players are amply rewarded with scholarships worth upwards of $40,000 a year and are only too delighted to play for the honor of alma mater, even though many leave for the pros as soon as they are legally able.That 1951 game in the Garden, which UConn lost to St. John’s, marked the university’s first sojourn into what The Hartford Courant called “big time basketball,” the NCAA Tournament. In those days, UConn’s football and basketball teams played mostly New England teams in what was known as the Yankee Conference and their longest trips were to communities like Orono, Maine — by bus.The home games were played at home, of all places. The basketball games were in an old fashioned, ramshackle field house — there was no Gampel Pavilion then and no arena in Hartford — and the football games were in a stadium at a place called the campus. This primitive arrangement did not survive the 20th century and now, home basketball games are divided between the campus and Hartford and for the football team, home is East Hartford.u u uEven with three NCAA championships in the past 15 years, UConn basketball hasn’t exactly been a financial success either. Data from the U.S. Department of Education for the five-year period ending in 2010, very successful years for the basketball program, shows an aggregate profit of $4.6 million, compared to rivals like Louisville, at $94 million, Syracuse, $46 million and Pittsburgh, $27.5 million. Forbes Magazine said this was caused by not having a definitive home base and playing in two small arenas, Gampel in Storrs and the XL Arena in Hartford.There was also some news last week for the non-athlete students, who do stay on to graduate. Their tuition was increased 6.5 percent by the deficit-ridden university that has seen its state aid cut. Unlike the special train to the Garden, this was not announced by Governor Malloy.Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.